RE: Land Rover Defender 90 | UK Review
Discussion
DonkeyApple said:
nothing worthwhile
I know PH is the hub for automotive bellendery, but you surely must be in line for an award for that post? So anyone who dislikes the new Defender is a Daily Heil reading misogynist and racist, riiiiiight.The reason the Land Rover is iconic isn't because it has ever been a good car, but because it has been adopted by so many organisations who needed a simple, easily repairable vehicle that could go 'anywhere'. No one has ever considered a Series Landy or Def as being good on road or decent to live with as a family car, but you look at decades of use in the military, emergency services, NGOs, charities and expeditions and those are the things that made it a legend.
The new Defender is clearly a better car all round than the old model, but it will never be used in the same way. It's 'just' another SUV, trading on past glories. They won't be seen clad in armour being pelted by petrol bombs, or seen collecting unexploded ordnance, or have cherry pickers on the back. They'll be on the school run or plastered with all the 'let's off road' toys as the epitome of 'all the gear and no idea' crowd or pimped with huge rims to become utterly unsuitable urban cruisers. It's a great SUV, but that's all it is. The Land Rover of old is dead and the tragic types who will buy the new model are in denial, thinking they'll be tackling the Kalahari, when the most they'll use it for is bumping over a kerb outside Starbucks.
Edited by mintcrumble on Friday 9th April 23:14
I find it slightly strange to read such passionate defence of what, in reality, is just another dull over complicated SUV.
Why do you care so much if some people don't like it?!
I owned several original Series and Defender LR's over the years and they were, without fail, crap. They just about served their purpose but were badly engineered and built to the point of ridicule.
The new one clearly serves a different market but the same old issues seem to apply.
Why do you care so much if some people don't like it?!
I owned several original Series and Defender LR's over the years and they were, without fail, crap. They just about served their purpose but were badly engineered and built to the point of ridicule.
The new one clearly serves a different market but the same old issues seem to apply.
mintcrumble said:
DonkeyApple said:
nothing worthwhile
I know PH is the hub for automotive bellendery, but you surely must be in line for an award for that post? So anyone who dislikes the new Defender is a Daily Heil reading misogynist and racist, riiiiiight.The reason the Land Rover is iconic isn't because it has ever been a good car, but because it has been adopted by so many organisations who needed a simple, easily repairable vehicle that could go 'anywhere'. No one has ever considered a Series Landy or Def as being good on road or decent to live with as a family car, but you look at decades of use in the military, emergency services, NGOs, charities and expeditions and those are the things that made it a legend.
The new Defender is clearly a better car all round than the old model, but it will never be used in the same way. It's 'just' another SUV, trading on past glories. They won't be seen clad in armour being pelted by petrol bombs, or seen collecting unexploded ordnance, or have cherry pickers on the back. They'll be on the school run or plastered with all the 'let's off road' toys as the epitome of 'all the gear and no idea' crowd or pimped with huge rims to become utterly unsuitable urban cruisers. It's a great SUV, but that's all it is. The Land Rover of old is dead and the tragic types who will buy the new model are in denial, thinking they'll be tackling the Kalahari, when the most they'll use it for is bumping over a kerb outside Starbucks.
Edited by mintcrumble on Friday 9th April 23:14
All while also white washing history to fit a classic stereotype. The old Land Rover lived during a time when large parts of the world did not have proper roads but crucially people always forget that the Land Rover really existed because the British Govt locked out competition. The govt owned the utility companies and controlled their procurement processes, the govt blocked all competition over the Empire and later the Commonwealth and it obviously controlled the MOD. What the rose tinted among us need to be honest about is that as each and every British institution obtain autonomy from the British govt so it instantly chose to ditch the Defender. As each country gained independence so the trade embargo's were lifted and the people freed to buy competing products. LR sales slumped with each act of independence.
By the 70s farmers had become sufficiently affluent to not need a Land Rover as their only mechanised farming tool and by the 80s key trade embargo's were lifted that meant they were no longer forced to by Land Rovers and almost overnight started buying the superior Japanese pick up.
Through the 80s all the utility companies were privatised, BP, BT, BG. Overnight they gained the right to chose the procurement that was best for their shareholders not the govt and they dropped the Defender as quickly as possible for the superior Transit van.
During the 90s the Emergency Services had their procurement restrictions lifted and surprise surprise they also dropped LR products overnight for superior competition.
And finally in the 2000s and after the tragic and unnecessary deaths of so many British soldiers the MOD was finally allowed to not have to buy Defenders.
Throughout all this time the entire planet had become tarmac'd, global trade agreements allowed competition and global wealth steadily expanded. In many ways the Land Rover was the automotive equivalent of the outside privy. A massive step up in luxury for almost everyone, infinitely more practical than anything before it and truly great. But then the indoor lavatory became available to the masses and there was simply no competition. The world had changed and the outside khazi was almost instantly redundant.
The reality is that by the end of Defender production all the groups that people put forward on PH as being important or relevant had not been buying Defenders for decades and had stopped doing so the moment that the British govt had allowed them to. Conversely, almost the only people who were buying Defenders in the 21st century were the lifestyle market. The people that PH dislikes were the only people keeping the product alive.
So what do JLR do? Do they build a new outdoor toilet for the millions of people who have told them to their face that they never want to use an outdoor toilet again? Or do they build an indoor toilet for the hundreds of thousands of people who have been buying and wanting to buy lifestyle vehicles from JLR?
Very obviously the latter.
And that is compounded further by simply considering some very basic economic principles, which again, people just love to ignore in their fantasy world where everyone wants to go back to using outdoor privies and the British Empire with its cheap land and cheap labour and gunboat diplomacy. To sell a cheap, utility vehicle you must sell in very high volumes as the unit margins are so much smaller. In order to be able to do that you must have the cheapest labour costs and cheapest land costs as well as materials and shipping costs. Now consider the Midlands. It does not meet any of those criteria. Nor does the UK in general which is why it focussed on higher end goods where the volumes are lower but the margins can easily absorb the higher land, labour and material costs.
The simple truth is very much that many people do see the new Defender as a poster boy for the social and economic progress that they dislike. It's not the car they have an issue with but the people inside it. Just like the problem many blokes have on PH with seeing women in expensive cars or non whites. The vehicle is simply a proxy for their prejudice.
OxfordBlue said:
Aside from the shock horror of there being a silver rear bumper and sporting white steelies, it's a fabulous vehicle to own and drive, and a pleasing world apart from my previous 1998 Defender.
Love it when the actual owners contribute to threads like this! Glad you’re enjoying the car - the steelies look good.
legless said:
reddiesel said:
Square Leg said:
I like that , I suppose that would be the typical Farmer Version . There seems to be a lot of the earlier discontinued engined model still unsold .Are they all six cylinder minimum now???
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff